BRITAIN MOVING IN AIR MATTERS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18992, 11 February 1930, Page 1

BRITAIN MOVING IN AIR MATTERS

EXTENSION OF CIVIL SERVICES IS PLANNED.

(United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.— Copyright.) RUGBY, February S

Lord Thomson, the Air Minister, addressing the British Empire League, mentioned the possibility of the Imperial air line to India being extended to Australia, and of the service from Egypt to South Africa being opened this year.

The air routes of the British Empire in 1928 amounted to 11,000 miles, he said, and in 1929, to 19,000 miles. A reasonable expectation for 1930 was an increase to 35,000 miles, by the extension to South Africa and Australia. The mileage in 1929 was:—Canada, 6500 miles; Australia, 5500 miles; South Africa, 1500 miles; India, 715 miles; and Great Britain, 5000 miles. Lord Thomson added that the airship programme had been well worth the money spent on it, and the two new airships had given enough satisfaction to justify reasonable optimism about this form of transportation. It was essentially a vehicle for passing over the seas. Air development, unlike the development of the mercantile marine, had grown in the hot-house of war, which had forced it artificially, and it had to be maintained artificially at present, unless the British people were prepared to drop out of the march of human progress.